The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Simon Sinek: You're Being Lied To About AI's Real Purpose And We're Teaching Our Kids To Not Be Human!
Mon, 26 May 2025
What if AI isn’t just a tool - but the greatest threat to human connection we’ve ever faced? Simon Sinek is a world-renowned entrepreneur, optimism expert, and founder of The Optimism Company, a platform which teaches human skills to leaders and organisations. He is also the bestselling author of books such as, ‘Start With Why’ and ‘Leaders Eat Last’. He explains: Why modern politics is killing your sense of purpose. Why we’ve forgotten how to be a good friend. How AI will create a generation of helpless humans. The number one secret skill AI can’t learn. How human skills like empathy are vanishing. 00:00 Intro 02:35 Biggest Forces of Change in Society 06:05 Is AI Cause for Concern? 12:55 Authenticity in the Age of AI 18:38 Skills Needed in the Evolving World of AI 20:08 Is Universal Basic Income a Solution to AI-Driven Job Loss? 20:58 UBI’s Impact on Meaning and Purpose 24:34 The Uncertain Future of AI 25:48 The Race for AI Dominance 28:25 AI’s Long-Term Impact on People’s Lives 32:32 Preparing Young People for the Future of AI 35:27 Importance of Gratitude in a World of Unlimited Possibilities 45:35 Importance of Relationships 48:03 Importance of Failure 49:07 Learning Through Experience and Resourcefulness 53:52 Why Struggle Is a Good Thing 55:45 People Buy the Story, Not the Product 59:37 Scale Breaks Things 1:02:37 Ads 1:03:41 Self-Love as a Key to Successful Relationships 1:05:31 Why Wrong Is Easier 1:09:15 Friction Creates Freedom 1:11:18 Building Community in the Age of AI 1:13:45 What Holds a Community Together? 1:16:57 Staying True to Your Values 1:20:46 Does Lack of Meaning and Purpose Lead to Loneliness? 1:22:21 Loneliness by Gender 1:23:06 Mental Health and Likelihood of Loneliness 1:25:15 How to Find Companionship When Lonely 1:30:37 Curiosity as a Key to Building Connection 1:32:28 Importance of Staying in Touch With Your Emotions 1:36:19 Drop in Automation-Related Job Postings 1:38:06 AI as an Opportunity to Discover New Hobbies and Skills 1:42:24 What Simon Is Struggling With Right Now 1:46:27 Choosing the Right Person to Fight With 1:48:33 Self-Reliance as a Career Foundation 1:53:26 Why Simon Wrote a Book About Friendship 1:56:20 How to Know if Someone Is a Friend 1:57:40 Following Up With People You Connect With 2:01:17 Mentoring Someone Behind You 2:03:08 The Challenge Coins 2:13:16 What Simon Misses About Being in a Relationship Follow Simon: Instagram - https://bit.ly/3z0riRb Twitter - https://bit.ly/45jgWrz Spotify: You can purchase the 15th Anniversary Edition of Simon’s book, here: https://bit.ly/3SOMdx3 The 1% Diary is back - limited time only: https://bit.ly/3YFbJbt The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards (Second Edition): https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb 👀 28.05.2025. Be the first to know: https://bit.ly/circle-youtube Get email updates: https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt Follow Steven: https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Linkedin Ads - https://www.linkedin.com/DIARY Ekster - http://partner.ekster.com/DOAC with code STEVEN Perfect Ted - https://www.perfectted.com with code DIARY40 for 40% off Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the biggest forces of change in society?
And here's the problem that we never talk about it. People keep telling us
Life is not about the destination. Life is about the journey. But when we think about AI, we only think about the destination and its remarkable ability to write the book, paint the painting, solve the problem. But we forget the importance of doing the work yourself. And I think in our modern day and age, we have underrepresented the value of struggle.
I am smarter, better at problem solving, more resourceful, not because a book exists with my ideas in it, but because I wrote it. That excruciating journey is what made me grow. But it's the same for love, friendships, conflict. And I think that we forget that we give up certain skills or abilities because of technology. But it's like saying AI will provide boats for everyone.
Except for the time there's a storm and you don't know how to swim. And unless we take personal accountability to teach and learn human skills, they will disappear.
Chapter 2: Is AI a cause for concern?
Sure, you can have an AI friend trained, like the best psychologist to affirm you, the best listening skills that exist, but my ability to know what to do when my friend is struggling, my ability to function in the world, or my ability to cope with stress. These very, very human skills are suffering.
So what are the other skills we need to equip ourselves with based on the way that the world is heading? Two things. One is... Quick one, just give me 30 seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us.
And this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm going to make to you.
I'm going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to and we're going to continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show. Good to see you again. Why are you laughing? It's just familiar. Familiar.
It's so interesting because when I sit down to talk to you, you're one of the very few people that I don't come with a preconception as to what we're going to talk about. But I come with a feeling. And the feeling that I bring forth is the feeling of change and transition.
I have lived for 32 years, but I don't think I can ever think of a time where the future has felt unclear, uncertain, scary, exciting, and... I guess unknown. And I don't just mean with technology, but technology is one protagonist in the story. And there's many other social stories playing out from politics to relationships to all of these things.
So my first question to you, Simon, is what are those things? What are the biggest forces of changes that you see happening at the moment in all of our lives that you think we should probably talk about today?
That is a big question. And I think one of the mistakes we make, and this is in general, is we like things to be very neatly organized. We like them to be black and white, yes or no, right or wrong. And as you know, the world is messier than that. It is more nuanced than that. And nothing operates in a vacuum. Everything is connected to everything.
Especially in a world that's filled with this rising technology called the internet and this burgeoning technology called the social media. And desires and feeling like belonging become more and more important. We're struggling to find them. Loneliness epidemic, stress epidemic, suicide epidemics. These are all feelings of disconnection, lack of control, and loneliness.
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Chapter 3: How does AI affect human relationships?
Not always immediately, but it seeks balance at all times. It's always seeking equilibrium. Okay, so flash forward to AI. Now you hear the knowledge workers. It's the knowledge workers who are going, my job. It's the coders. It's the finance people. My job. The plumber is not worried about AI. At all. The baggage handler at the airport cares zero about AI.
And so maybe the right response is, it's the future, man. It's technology. Reskill, reskill. Maybe become a plumber. By the way, money's really good. You get to work for yourself if you want. So I just find the pendulum kind of funny.
With AI, do you think it's overblown or do you think it really is cause for concern and deeper thought?
The honest answer is I don't know. Everybody falls on one side of the sky is not falling, chicken little, or the sky is falling and we're all going to die, right? The truth, like most things, is probably somewhere in the middle. But the real answer is I don't know and neither does anybody else.
And it seems that we should have some sort of controls because we didn't put any controls on the internet. They did put controls on the internet in China. Like children don't have the same access to social media like kids do here. Europe has controls on the internet and America doesn't. And we're the ones that seem to be suffering more because of the lack of controls on the internet.
So I think some – and by the way, when people talk about deregulation and no controls, I mean they make us wear seatbelts in our cars. You know, there's nothing, we have speed limits, you know, and it's for the greater good. And yeah, sure, your seatbelt's uncomfortable, but you'll get used to it. Like, and it's fine, you know? So I think the call for no reform is wrong.
There are correct limits to keep things safe. Yeah. I am fascinated by AI, both the benefits and the weaknesses of it. But it is revealing to me something more important than what other people are talking about, which is we're a result-obsessed society, right? Right. We care about output, we care about performance, we care about numbers, we care about final product more than anything, right?
And when people talk about AI, they talk about its remarkable ability to write the symphony, paint the painting, write the book, write the article, Solve the problem. And by the way, the technology is incredible. I asked only a few months ago to please take this and put it in the style of me. And it was fine. I did it with a friend of mine who's also an author, and we both did it for ourselves.
We did it on each other. It was really fun. And it was fine. I don't think it was good. It gave me a good start, and I could edit it. I did it recently. We both did it. It was damn near flawless. It was scary good, right? Now, AI doesn't know the thing I'm thinking about. It doesn't know that the next book I'm going to write about is friendship.
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Chapter 4: What skills do we need to thrive in an AI-driven world?
Chapter 5: Can Universal Basic Income solve job loss from AI?
With AI, do you think it's overblown or do you think it really is cause for concern and deeper thought?
The honest answer is I don't know. Everybody falls on one side of the sky is not falling, chicken little, or the sky is falling and we're all going to die, right? The truth, like most things, is probably somewhere in the middle. But the real answer is I don't know and neither does anybody else.
And it seems that we should have some sort of controls because we didn't put any controls on the internet. They did put controls on the internet in China. Like children don't have the same access to social media like kids do here. Europe has controls on the internet and America doesn't. And we're the ones that seem to be suffering more because of the lack of controls on the internet.
So I think some – and by the way, when people talk about deregulation and no controls, I mean they make us wear seatbelts in our cars. You know, there's nothing, we have speed limits, you know, and it's for the greater good. And yeah, sure, your seatbelt's uncomfortable, but you'll get used to it. Like, and it's fine, you know? So I think the call for no reform is wrong.
There are correct limits to keep things safe. Yeah. I am fascinated by AI, both the benefits and the weaknesses of it. But it is revealing to me something more important than what other people are talking about, which is we're a result-obsessed society, right? Right. We care about output, we care about performance, we care about numbers, we care about final product more than anything, right?
And when people talk about AI, they talk about its remarkable ability to write the symphony, paint the painting, write the book, write the article, Solve the problem. And by the way, the technology is incredible. I asked only a few months ago to please take this and put it in the style of me. And it was fine. I did it with a friend of mine who's also an author, and we both did it for ourselves.
We did it on each other. It was really fun. And it was fine. I don't think it was good. It gave me a good start, and I could edit it. I did it recently. We both did it. It was damn near flawless. It was scary good, right? Now, AI doesn't know the thing I'm thinking about. It doesn't know that the next book I'm going to write about is friendship.
It doesn't know the point of view I'm going to have on friendship. If you ask it, what would Simon Sinek say about friendship, it's going to be why this and why that. So it's derivative, right? We know that. It's not original. We know that. But at the end of the day, the work is good. The symphony is good. The art is good. The article is good. The book is decent.
Like it's getting better and better and better. But here's the problem that we keep not talking about. People keep telling us that life is not about the destination. Life is about the journey. That's what we keep being told, right? But when we think about AI, we only think about the destination. We only think about the output. We never think about the input, right?
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Chapter 6: How can we prepare young people for the future with AI?
And what made you a great entrepreneur is not that the company exists, is that you built it with your hands and you've got the scars to show for it. It was when things went wrong and you were forced to fix them and think that now when problems show up, you're quick, you're smarter. You're a much smarter businessman now than you were five years ago, six years ago.
Yeah.
Because you did it. And I think what we're forgetting is that there's something to be said for – and by the way, I'm a fan of AI. I want AI to make things. But I would hate to lose out on becoming a better version of me. And I think that to really learn to grow – and by the way, I used to have a steel trap for phone numbers. I knew everybody's phone number.
And then all of a sudden my phone, my PDA, I don't need to memorize a phone number anymore. I don't know most of the people that I love. I don't know their phone numbers. I type their name in, right? I just have to know their name. And so my brain literally went on strike. It said, fine. Fine.
You no longer have the capacity to remember phone numbers, and I can't remember phone numbers to save my life, right? So we give up certain skills or abilities because of technology regularly, right? That's fine.
I don't have a problem with any of those things because whether I can remember a phone number or not will not affect my relationships, my ability to function in the world, or my ability to cope with stress. But my ability to know what to do when my friend is struggling— My ability to know what to do when I have a fight with my spouse or my partner.
My ability to know what to do when my boss yells at me but I don't want to escalate it or my employee is acting out and I don't want to escalate it or fire them. How do I resolve this? I've missed out on those skills. And simply asking AI, how should I resolve this thing? It'll give you an answer and it may work. And you've learned nothing, right?
And so it's the difference between, it's like saying AI will provide boats for everyone. Except for the time there's a storm and you don't know how to swim. And I'm okay, use the boat. Also learn to swim. So I think there's something to be said for writing your own symphony, painting your own painting, building your own business, you know, writing your own book.
Not for them, not for the output, not for the output, for your personal growth.
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Chapter 7: What is the value of struggle in personal growth?
Chapter 8: Why is human connection essential in the age of AI?
And then all of a sudden my phone, my PDA, I don't need to memorize a phone number anymore. I don't know most of the people that I love. I don't know their phone numbers. I type their name in, right? I just have to know their name. And so my brain literally went on strike. It said, fine. Fine.
You no longer have the capacity to remember phone numbers, and I can't remember phone numbers to save my life, right? So we give up certain skills or abilities because of technology regularly, right? That's fine.
I don't have a problem with any of those things because whether I can remember a phone number or not will not affect my relationships, my ability to function in the world, or my ability to cope with stress. But my ability to know what to do when my friend is struggling— My ability to know what to do when I have a fight with my spouse or my partner.
My ability to know what to do when my boss yells at me but I don't want to escalate it or my employee is acting out and I don't want to escalate it or fire them. How do I resolve this? I've missed out on those skills. And simply asking AI, how should I resolve this thing? It'll give you an answer and it may work. And you've learned nothing, right?
And so it's the difference between, it's like saying AI will provide boats for everyone. Except for the time there's a storm and you don't know how to swim. And I'm okay, use the boat. Also learn to swim. So I think there's something to be said for writing your own symphony, painting your own painting, building your own business, you know, writing your own book.
Not for them, not for the output, not for the output, for your personal growth.
Before I got here today, I was writing a post for LinkedIn. And I was trying to make the case that everybody using ChatGPT to write their emails, their social media posts, their investment pitches that I received,
is now making the internet feel really inauthentic because people that I knew for many, many years are now sending me these perfect cookie-cutter emails with words that I've never heard them used before. Yeah, of course. And so when I read it, my brain mentally discounts it as not being their opinion, not actually being them. And when you feel like you're speaking to someone's AI...
the meaning is gone. So I was writing this post about how actually now there's this premium on human written language. Like if you make a couple of mistakes and you use the old words, you don't use words like forged and robust. I'd like to forge a partnership with you, Stephen. Furthermore, can we – I'm like, you never said that to me, mate. The end dashes. Oh, my gosh. It's funny, right?
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